Steven Spielberg is attached to the project.

Microsoft and 343 Industries announced plans for a live-action Halo TV series in partnership with Steven Spielberg at the unveiling event for the company’s new console, the Xbox One. The TV series heralds Microsoft’s intent to merge its console as much as possible with live TV, though it also represents the company's intent to to become a source for content as well as vector, as the series will be exclusive to the Xbox One.

Bonnie Ross, head of 343 Industries, made an appearance at the event to namecheck the success of the Halo-centric Web series Forward Unto Dawnas an integral step toward making the jump to a full series. Spielberg called the series "an amazing opportunity to be at intersection of mythmaking and technology."

Microsoft and 343 Industries did not specify how, if at all, the new series will fit with Forward Unto Dawn or the game series. Forward Unto Dawn, which was also a live-action show, centered on the experiences of cadet Thomas Lasky and was released over two months last fall. The series ran as five 20-minute episodes and cost just under $10 million to produce.

Microsoft also emphasized its intent to add to live sports games, showing a fantasy basketball league interface over a live basketball game. Xbox One will also get content integrated with NFL that will be exclusive to the Xbox dashboard experience.

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I'm super excited by this; a few of us Halo nerds hypothesized that Forward Unto Dawn was a bit of a trial balloon—A way to both promote the launch of Halo 4, but also to see how an online-only TV series based on a tiny element of the backstory might work to gauge the possibility of next-gen efforts. Combine that with the episodic story content + gaming content that made up Spartan Ops, and I think we've got a good view into how this will play out on the XBox One.

Casey Johnston
Casey Johnston is the former Culture Editor at Ars Technica, and now does the occasional freelance story. She graduated from Columbia University with a degree in Applied Physics. Twitter@caseyjohnston

I'm super excited by this; a few of us Halo nerds hypothesized that Forward Unto Dawn was a bit of a trial balloon—A way to both promote the launch of Halo 4, but also to see how an online-only TV series based on a tiny element of the backstory might be received (by all accounts, incredibly well). Combine that with the episodic story content + gaming content that made up Spartan Ops, and I think we've got a good view into how this will play out on the XBox One.

And this will be on Piratebay about an hour after the exclusive release.

Probably but capturing from an Xbox One might actually present a challenge for a few days.

In any case, I imagine the series will hit bluray or other legit sources about 10 minutes after the last episode 'airs'. It would be a huge waste to keep content with any kind of broad appeal locked to a single hardware platform like that. As a timed exclusive? Sure. Forever? Nope nope nope.

And this will be on Piratebay about an hour after the exclusive release.

Probably but capturing from an Xbox One might actually present a challenge for a few days.

In any case, I imagine the series will hit bluray or other legit sources about 10 minutes after the last episode 'airs'. It would be a huge waste to keep content with any kind of broad appeal locked to a single hardware platform like that. As a timed exclusive? Sure. Forever? Nope nope nope.

There are enough HDCP strippers out there that this can just be re-compressed. Sure, it'll just look amazing instead of amazing+ but still HD and crisp. I'm not even a fan of Halo, but the new Xbox has caught my attention regardless.

I think the most important part from the TV series announcement is how heavily they implied HBO. They name dropped Band of Brothers and Game of Thrones before bringing out Speilberg, and then said it'd be a "premium tv series". I will watch the heck out of a BoB style Halo series. SO much potential.

I dunno. I enjoy Halo, but you can only get so much out of it. Forward Unto Dawn was a competent, though unspectacular show. It was pretty much your typical war movie with the Halo sci-fi elements pasted over the top of it. It did its job well enough, (and that job was "make Master Chief look like the ultimate badass"), but it really wasn't anything that special when you get down to it.

I dunno. I enjoy Halo, but you can only get so much out of it. Forward Unto Dawn was a competent, though unspectacular show. It was pretty much your typical war movie with the Halo sci-fi elements pasted over the top of it. It did its job well enough, (and that job was "make Master Chief look like the ultimate badass"), but it really wasn't anything that special when you get down to it.

Military sci-fi is something that has rarely been done well out of literary form. 'Forward Unto Dawn' did a decent job in both the training and fighting in making it semi-believable from a military point of view, the sci-fi caveats inherited from the game aside.

Great. More fragmentation of content. The more 'exclusive' you make everything, the less inclined I am to purchase your product. I'm not going to get nickel and dime'd, or in this case $5 & $10'd, in all these niche markets to watch content. I'm not subscibing to cable for this, netflix for that, microsoft for this, hulu for that, and particular labels for whatever.

I've taken a personal stance to not pirate content, but I'm not inclined to get screwed over either.

And this will be on Piratebay about an hour after the exclusive release.

Probably but capturing from an Xbox One might actually present a challenge for a few days.

In any case, I imagine the series will hit bluray or other legit sources about 10 minutes after the last episode 'airs'. It would be a huge waste to keep content with any kind of broad appeal locked to a single hardware platform like that. As a timed exclusive? Sure. Forever? Nope nope nope.

You must not have met Microsoft.

Go ahead and Google the release date of Halo 3 XBOX.

Done?

Ok, now Google the release date of the same game on WINDOWS, ANOTHER PLATFORM **THEY OWN**

Rather than a TV series, I'd rather they do a miniseries, maybe 10-12 episodes, Band of Brother style. It could be Halo 1-3, with perhaps some flashbacks to Reach and some of the early Spartan II missions, or those could be the early episodes.

I really hated Halo 4, most especially for the story. Forward Unto Dawn was enjoyable, but not great. Halo 4 was an abomination in everything from the sound of the Warthog to the stupid and incomprehensible new threat to humanity (I seriously still have no clue what any of that game was about).

Halo 1-3 instead had a nice story arc, clear stakes, and interesting characters. If following the games is too boring (I would disagree), there's plenty of other material from that era to draw from. I Love Bees did a great look into the world of the UNSC and civilian life under threat of the Covenant. They could do original content with the ODST or ONI or the Spartan IIIs. They could do lots of things, with multiple miniseries covering a lot of content over the next few years.

If this TV series is designed to get people playing Halo 5+, I'm really not interested.

A television exec talking about embracing innovation almost put me in physical pain.

A TV exec who no longer works in TV and works for MS.

Its not that they REFUSE to embrace technology, it just depends on how much you pay them to (or NOT to) embrace it.

Well she did introduce herself by talking up CSI and Survivor as being their creative successes...

Well, to be fair, they WERE financially successful, which to an exec is the same thing as a creative success.

Hence my pain.

How are they also not creative successes? Oh its something you don't like? CSI had enough interest from its fan base to have 2 hit spin offs and collectively been on the air for over 30 seasons. It was the Number 1 drama for years. It was and still is well received by critics.

A television exec talking about embracing innovation almost put me in physical pain.

A TV exec who no longer works in TV and works for MS.

Its not that they REFUSE to embrace technology, it just depends on how much you pay them to (or NOT to) embrace it.

Well she did introduce herself by talking up CSI and Survivor as being their creative successes...

Well, to be fair, they WERE financially successful, which to an exec is the same thing as a creative success.

Hence my pain.

How are they also not creative successes? Oh its something you don't like? CSI had enough interest from its fan base to have 2 hit spin offs and collectively been on the air for over 30 seasons. It was the Number 1 drama for years. It was and still is well received by critics.

While never a *huge* fan of it (although there were some great episodes), I always thought the original CSI was fairly innovative for what it was, when it debuted, at least. It's the first criminal-focused series I'm aware of that approached the cases from the perspective of a scientist (or "CSI"), and they did some really neat stuff in those first few seasons. The show spawned an entire genre of copycats, where the detectives were suddenly scientists. Not unfair to call it innovative.

Survivor, on the other hand, epitomizes everything wrong with reality TV. Drawing a comparison to that stupid show is just dumb.

Survivor, on the other hand, epitomizes everything wrong with reality TV. Drawing a comparison to that stupid show is just dumb.

You are just wrong about Survivor. I don't understand why it gets lumped in with reality TV really anyways. Its a long form game show that has some awesome uses of game theory and the whole premise of the show really is just genius. How do you get someone to vote to give you a 1 million dollars when you voted them out. The show does not and has never pretended to be "reality" because well outside of a game show this type of situation would never happen. The drama on the show can be very real though.

Its also an extremely successful shows that was a juggernaut of ratings for years and still after 13 years and 26 seasons still has big ratings.